Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Hurricane Rita fish kill

Hurrincane Rita came about 15 miles from my ranch with high winds, 12 inches of rain, and some lightning. I have a 1/2 acre, spring-fed catfish pond on the property. A few days after the storm I noticed about 20 large(3lb. +)catfish (along with a bass and some smaller chubbs and bluegills)floating dead along the bank. There are a lot of live bait fish still active in the pond, and this is the only body of water on the ranch with a fish kill. My 9-acre lake and two stock tanks were high and muddy, but otherwise fine.

I suspect either lightning (some large trees were toppled around the pond)or oxygen deprivation, but I can't figure out how the oxygen level would drop in only one pond with all that new water. Does anybody have any suggestions?

Bruno

I assume you were having a very good algea bloom and then had influx of organic matter/rain water it could have clouded up the water which then killed off the algea and then created a temporary oxygen sag for a day or two. That happened with one of the state lakes here in NE this summer and it killed most of the adult fish off. It sounds like most of your fish probably survived though.

Bruno,

Howdy neighbor! I'm not far from you as we're located over by the Indian Reservation off 2500 extension. Rita was something else, wasn't she? We left Houston to go to our ranch, a supposedly safer location, and were greeted by Rita.

As far as fish kills, in 4 ponds I experienced no fish problems or anything adverse resulting from Rita. Not sure what happened to you but the sudden temp change from all that rain may have lead to a turnover and resulting fish kill.

Now, if we could just get electricity back there, like could begin to get back to normal.

I agree with ML. You might have gotten a lot of colder water from the rain. It probably sank and caused a problem.

Do you have an aeration system? We have had massive amounts of rain here this week and so far so good. I keep the aerator running from snow melt in spring until November 1.

Tuzz,

Unless it was solar or wind powered, it hasn't been operating for some time. We just now got electricity flowing again there and many folks are still without. Suspect Bruno, if he has it back, just recently got it.

If the pond in question is the only one spring fed, maybe the catfish pond suddenly became contaminated with high salinity levels, that could explain the demise. If your other ponds are also spring fed, just disregard this post